Questions from the client base #9: “What if we train our people in Social Selling, they become ‘famous’ and are poached by a competitor?”.
Eric Doyle (F.ISP)
Digital Commercial Strategist - Developing people and organisations to become leaders in their sectors - TedX Speaker - Keynote speaker, event host/compere/moderator - Artist
"An employer once said, "What if I train my people and they leave?" I say, what if you don't train them... and they stay..." -- Evan Kirshenbaum
This is a question we are often asked by Senior Leaders who are worried about their people showcasing their talent, experience, knowledge, and personalities on Social Media.
When we train team in Social Selling & Influence and put a Strategic Social Media framework in place, they begin to fill the digital air in their sectors.?They grow huge networks of interesting and interested people and begin to be known as the humanised voice of specialism in their sector.
??They receive new levels of attention and have more conversations, they are making deeper connections and becoming ever present in the minds of important people in their markets.
??They become the leading Technical and Commercial Digital Influencers in their space.
??They understand how to prospect and network in the digital twin of their sector, they understand how to create influence and build digital dominance and they understand how to convert of all this into commercial interaction.
The commercial world is changing right in front of our eyes, this is outlined in the Edelman LinkedIn Thought leadership impact study of September 2021
GARTNER
Byers engage with providers very late in the process:
83% of a typical B2B purchasing decision – researching solutions, ranking options and benchmarking pricing – happens before a buyer engages directly with a provider.
McKINSEY
They are content with new ways of working
More B2B purchase interactions have moved remote of digital, including identifying new suppliers, evaluating new suppliers, ordering, and reordering.?70 – 80% of B2B decision makers prefer it that way.
McKINSEY
Self-serve and remote transactions are also on the rise.
70—80-% of B2B decision makers say they are open to making new, fully self-serve or remote purchases in excess of ￡50,000, and 27% would spend more than $500,000.
Think about these statistics in relation to your organisation and your sector.
“83% of a typical B2B purchasing decision – researching solutions, ranking options and benchmarking pricing – happens before a buyer engages directly with a provider”.
Buyers are using Social Media to decide if you are in or out.
You can’t hope to be ‘in’ by simply posting brochureware, using marketing technology and locking down your potential for digital influence.?Your competition, who are training their teams to claim the digital oxygen and keep buyers inside their digital network, are excluding you from the race.
“More B2B purchase interactions have moved remote of digital, including identifying new suppliers, evaluating new suppliers, ordering, and reordering.?70 – 80% of B2B decision makers prefer it that way”.
This is happening right now, so what have you done to adjust your market play to suit? ?Doing more of what you did before won’t cut it in the new digital commercial world.
?“70—80-% of B2B decision makers say they are open to making new, fully self-serve or remote purchases in excess of $50,000, and 27% would spend more than $500,000”.
In order to get to this place, buyers need to know and trust your organisation.?
They must have full confidence in your collective capabilities and competence.?They don’t get this from your adverts, your brochures, or your product sheets.?
How do you get to this place with a prospect company your never met and who know nothing about you…?
??You get here by becoming strategic with Social Media, training your team in Social Selling & influence, and understanding how modern marketing and sales in moving.
??You get here by opening your eyes and your mind to the change and deciding to take what is rightfully yours, a solid foundation in the digital twin of your sector.
??You get here by realising its no longer about marketing doing the website, adverts, and events and then sales trying to get a meeting to convert some of this into orders.
??This is about a full rewire and reset of how modern Sales and Marketing operates in 2022.
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??This is about arming your organisations with the skills, framework, and culture to lead the way in your sector, through digital and social.
??This is about being comfortable with you and members of your team becoming the leading Technical and Commercial Digital Influencers in your sector.
What do you get in return...?
Qualified Relevance:?
Forget ‘visibility’, it’s the bane of any modern marketing effort.?Visibility is a tiny tip of the iceberg, its what you do with it. Social Selling & Influence creates relevance in your buyers’ minds.?
They know you and understand you, they can see you know what you claim to know because you show them, regularly.? They are going into that buyers meeting thinking only about you – Qualified as relevant, when they have never met you.
Owning the digital ‘Share of Voice’ in your chosen sectors
Many think Social Selling & Influence is knowing how to click buttons on one platform: “tweak your profile”, “add a hashtag here or there”, “do more video” …. this is futile, will waste you time and money and will achieve no sustainable commercial change in your organisational development.?Owning the digital share of voice in your sector take expertise and understanding of modern commercial evolution.
Trusted advisor status
Being known as an expert, a specialist, the solution.... before you have met the client.?Not only do they understand what you do, they feel they know you.?
Know, Like, Trust > Interact.
Pipeline, growth & inbound
Every organisation who becomes a social organisation can expect at least a 30% increase in revenue and a 40% decrease in sales cycle timelines.
Recruitment opportunities
People leaving schools, colleges and universities are using Social Media to decide who they want to work with.?If they can’t see you, you are back in the dark ages and searching for people.?Ove of our clients who are currently hiring said every candidate that has come to them saw their story on Social and decided to apply “because it looks like a great company to work for”.?At this point think 'brochures and ‘buy my stuff’ content versus influence'.
Employee engagement & shared sense of purpose
No longer is it all about the Marketing department putting out corporate content or proving the team homogenised scrubbed, approved content to post.?The whole team is involved, building influence, making meaningful connections across all functions, having conversations.?
Every keystroke, every like and comments, every view, every single element of this is playing into the strategy to become the leading technical and commercial digital influencers in your sector
So, to answer the first question…“What if we train our people in Social Selling, they become ‘famous’ and are poached by a competitor?”.?
The upside of becoming a Social Organisation is now obvious, it’s a modern B2B business imperative.?Training your team in Social Selling & influence brings company changing results.
If people are going to leave your organisation it’s because they don’t like working there and would rather work somewhere else, its nothing to do with Social Media.
Being the leader who held your organisational develop back, not grasping the Digital and Social Opportunity due to fear that you would lose people, is akin to shooting yourself in the foot...
Trust in your people, trust in the process and leverage the new trust you are growing in your markets.
Its up to you to create the culture and environment that makes people want to stay with you.?
Becoming a Social Organisation means lots of attention on your people and your business, is you business culture robust enough to make people want to stay??
This is the real and more relevant question…?
Helping SMEs and large Supply Chain Owners with a Certified Net Zero Solution
2 年Anyone who thinks they are "famous" through LinkedIn is kidding themselves. However I love your article and I think that everyone should be encouraged to shine in their best possibly way. There is no way round the fact that it's not for everyone. It has been known for #Joanne to move to a job where social selling seems to be better valued as an option.
In a world of empty suits, I’m leading a movement of authenticity, integrity, and trust inside the sales profession
2 年Here is the question for many leaders to think about Eric Doyle (F.ISP) ... How do your salespeople start building forms of trust and credibility before the first conversation? Just as a corporate website is a window into the company, one's social positioning (LinkedIn profile) is a window into them. Is the window open or closed?
?? Equity Catalyst Leader | Award-Winning Social Worker 20+ Years | Champion EDI | CEO @ Agency Connection | Advocate Black Children in Care | Author, Mentor, Writer I Devoted Mum & Avid Runner
2 年My answer to that Eric Doyle (F.ISP) is what if you train and invest in them and they stay? ??they are definitely more likely to leave if not looked after. I don’t get why companies still have this mindset.
Your articles / blogs / THUNKS always get my grey cells whirring at top speed Eric ??. Culture is everything. That's what makes people stay, listen, learn, grow (and on it goes)...spot on! ?????
Change is inevitable, the last 18 months has been about geeking out with this thing called AI. Its my new friend you know. If you want to know what I know, give me a shout I might let you come to a course??
2 年love this, now lets talk about you training me to become famous?? OK joking apart, we face this all the time with technical staff, and they do leave for better money, but we don't see it as a problem as many have gone on and sold products they built into companies they now work for. I think if you plan for this as a possibility they all will be fine, but the opportunity is about giving training to get the best skills out of your team